The Warfare of the Weak

Author Max Boot discusses his new book, "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," with WSJ weekend Review editor Gary Rosen.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... a remarkable thing about the world we see today is that nowhere is there a conflict between ... two uniformed military is but our world is hardly peaceful we see all sorts of lesser conflicts ... involving militaries and ... different sorts of the regulars unconventional forces Grillo Warriors where I'm here today with Max ... Max is the author of the new book invisible army is an epic history of guerrilla warfare ... Systemax ... guerrilla warfare it seems like it's something that is really become a focus of attention ... over the last century or should sell its Shake Rivera its Mao Zedong ... I'm ... it's a relatively new thing yes ... well it certainly got a lot more attention in recent decades with the ... triumphs of the ... Mala sunroom which demands and shake of errors ... but in fact ... the rule of warfare ... has the most ancient form of warfare ... its been around as long as mankind has been on this earth ... because tribal warfare in the very first kind of warfare ... is essentially guerrilla warfare ... within run tactics and ... no conventional military is in uniforms ... of battling around five mines ... so Grohl warfare is actually been around forever it's not only ... the ancient it's also ... the predominant form of conflict ... most wars ... not only today but fraught history ... have been ... on conventional wars ... which suggests that the very way we think about these things ... is all screwed up ... Grohl warfare ... does not unconventional it's not a regular that is the norm ... the exception is ... war spinning to uniformed always against one another ... so grows also I think and develop ... a formidable reputation over the last entry or so it seems like anytime a power even a great power ... gets involved in a grilled wore it ends badly so so what are we to make of this matchup it seems the grill is usually when he is that the case ... they don't usually when they are formidable and they are very hard to defeat ... but the reality is ... just as most ... business start ups don't become helpful Micra soft ... most insurgent groups ... don't become the Chinese Red Army for the Viet Cong and in Vietnam ... a good example of that is one of the most storied Kuril warriors of all time ... should do better ... he was obviously very successful fighting with ... Fidel Castro against the Batista dictatorship in Cuba ... in the nineteen fifties when he tried to exporters Roche and elsewhere ... he was unsuccessful ... and he was killed in Bolivia ... in nineteen sixty seven by Bolivian Ranger unit trained by the U S military ... so even an iconic role warfare like shade of Era Cafe on The and ... that can happen to anybody and it does happen any body ... that so long that it's quick or easy ... cruel workers' contract on for decades even if ... unsuccessful ... so one thing you emphasizing the book is that ... of course grill warfare is ancient it goes back ... to two ancient times it goes back to our own revolution here in United States but certain things about have changed in the last entry so what what's been the biggest change in how the realists fight their wars and in how ... conventional powers have to deal with the rail is ... the biggest change over the centuries has been the rising importance of the two peas ... politics and propaganda ... and how thousands of years ago ... Grohl warfare was often practiced by nomadic warriors like the Mongols were the ones ... who don't worry too much about ... our issuing communique is or or ... or getting their message out onto the people they were targeting ... they got the message out by killing and raping and ... then we can carnage ... in the last couple of hundred years however with the growth of literacy ... the spread of mass media democracy of international organizations ... all these factors ... have placed more and more emphasis on ... propaganda ... as a tool of the rule of warfare ... in fact the song the money went so far as to say that the media war ... was ninety percent of a hole ... in the battle for jihad ... not so important ... of propagandists gone in recent years and it's really a leveling off force one that allows ... written relatively weak on ... insurgent groups ... hard to sometimes succeeding into trying for a very powerful commercial military's ... five undermining the support of a house ... on the home front ... so in talking about how these historical lessons might be applied to policy choices we have to make today ... it seems like one of the key things that policymakers military leaders that make a mistake about it thinking they can ... when the grill war quickly so so why is that not the case why is it so hard to conclude one of these things in a few years ... will ... politicians and the military's are always looking for a quick fix ... when you see it today of the drone strikes were hoping that if you push a bun ... and call it terrorism or on the other side of the world ... will suddenly when the war against al Cato ... or some other group ... now sadly I was that were the case but it's not ... because these groups usually have a tremendous power ... to regenerate themselves and in fact if you try to use too much firepower to eliminate them very quickly ... I can backfire because if you wind up killing a lot of civilians ... what you can do is you can create more enemies ... than your taken off the battlefield ... and so when militaries of trying to get included in a quick fix to an intractable insurgency whether in ... Vietnam Iraq ... the result is usually been disaster ... the only one armed forces have adopted a longer term mentality understanding ... that they're not going away and by killing Gorillas ... they're gonna win by securing the population ... the chains that was made in Iraq in two thousandseven ... it's only when it off longer term mindset that they can have greater success ... so ... it's it's a it's a mistake to think that you can somehow ... on the end of an insurgency with the snap your fingers you have to be patient if you try it ... and if you if you like that patients ... you're not going to be successful ... very good well Max thank you for joining us as a lively book with lots of lessons for policy makers today again it's called the invisible army is an epic history of Grillo warfare by Max boot ... I'm Gary Rosen for Wall Street Journal weekend Revue ...